Mineral wool depelletizing apparatus



June 21, 1955 L. H. HILLS MINERAL WOOL DEPELLETIZING APPARATUS Filed June 28, 1954 nur 2,711,247 TVIINERAL WGL DEPELLETIZMG APPARATUS Leander H. Hills, Newark, N. Y., assigner to The Gprlock Packing Company, Palmyra, N. Y., a corporation of New York Application .lune 28, 1954, Serial No. 439,829 7 Claims. (Cl. 269-29) The present invention relates to an apparatus for removing from mineral wool the pellets which are contained therein. These pellets occur naturally in the manufacture of the wool, and are substantially solid and approximately globular. With certain uses of mineral wool, the pellets are highly undesirable, but satisfactory means have not heretofore been developed for removing them, largely because of the tendency of the fibrous part of the wool to disintegrate under depelletizing treatment.

An important object of this invention, therefore, is the separation of such pellets from mineral wool at minimum cost.

Another important object is such separation without causing disintegration of the fibrous part of the wool.

ln accomplishing these objects there is provided a hopper to receive the mineral wool, and a tubular, almost horizontal but slightly rising conduit leading from the hopper to a classifying stack and entering the latter tangentially; the stack being a substantially vertical inverted J-shaped round tube. The stack empties by gravity into a vent chamber, the shape of which is not critical. The chamber has a removable drawer at the bottom thereof for receiving the brous product, and a plurality of mesh covered openings providing escape for air. A first blower feeds an air stream into the conduit, and a second blower feeds an air stream into the bottom of the stack. The duct of the second blower preferably has an outwardly and upwardly haring mouth located in the stack substantially concentrically and with a space between the mouth and the stack wall. Above said mouth and below the junction of the conduit and the stack, a screen may advantageously be employed to aid in separation of the pellets from the fibrous material.

The wool is fed into the hopper whence the air from the first blower carries it through the conduit to the stack, where the second blower boosts it upwards while the main air stream from the first blower, entering the stack tangentially, combines with the second or stack blower to whirl the wool up the stack in a vortical path. The turbulence in the ascending vortical stream is sufficient to free the pellets from the fibers, the fibers following the upward stream in the stack while the pellets, due to their greater specific volume, descend by gravity to the bottom of the stack, passing around the flared mouth which is delivering the upwardly directed air stream. The pellets are collected at the bottom of the stack and the fibers, as previously mentioned, are collected at the bottom of the vent chamber.

The invention accordingly consists in the features of construction, combinations of elements and arrangements of parts which will be exemplified in the constructions hereinafter described. In the accompanying drawing, in which is shown one of the various possible illustrative embodiments of this invention:

Figure l is a side elevation, partly broken away, of a rather rudimentary but operative device embodying the present invention.

Patented .inne 21, 1955 Figure 2 is a horizontal section on the line 2 2 of` 10 comprises an inverted J-shaped tubular stack 11 in the form of a substantially vertical hollow column or tube 12 and an inverted U-shaped tube 13 connected to the top of tube 12; the two tubes preferably being round in crosssection. The downwardly directed open end portion 14 of tube 13 constitutes a discharge port opening into an air exhaust chamber 15.

A blower 16 of any suitable type feeds a stream of air into a conduit 17, past a Venturi-forming inner baille 17a at the discharge port of a hopper 13 which opens into conduit 17, and wool from the hopper is entrained and moves, through said conduit with said air stream, into stack 11. Conduit 17 has a portion 19 extending substantially laterally from hopper 18 to stack 11, and also at a slight upward inclination as the portion 19 approaches stack 11. The juncture 2.0 of conduit 17 and stack 11 is substantially tangential of the latter, as clearly seen in Figure 2.

Juncture 2u is adjacent the bottom of stack 11, and below it is a wire mesh screen 21 extending substantially horizontally entirely across stack 11 and supported by an annular frame 22 afiixed to the stack wall. This screen supports any fibrous material which may be delayed or diverted from its entranment with the air streams until the latter carry such diverted material into the main body of such material moving upwardly in the stack. The mesh of screen 21 is suficiently coarse to permit pellets to drop therethrough. y

Below screen 21 and spaced from the wall of stack 11 is an upwardly and outwardly flaring mouth portion 23 of a pipe 24 which extends axially in stack 11, and thence downwardly out of the stack and a suitable blower 25, which, through pipe 2li, forces a stream of air axially upwardly in the stack as indicated by the long straight" arrows in the drawing. To facilitate removal pellets, pipe 24 preferably has a cleanout stack 11 has a cleanout door to a collecting tray 28.

The air exhaust chamber 15 may be of square'cross* section as seen in Figure 2, although this shape is not critical. At the base of chamber 15 is a drawer or tray 29 to which access is provided by a door 30. In wall 31 of chamber 15 is at least one and possibly several openings 32 closed by an air-pervious screen which may consist of an inner layer of fine cloth or wire mesh 33 and an outer layer of coarser wire mesh 34, the two layers being held in place by a frame 35 held against the wall 31 by bolts 36. A ledge 37 of triangular cross-section, only one member of which is illustrated, extends around the inside of chamber 15 above the drawer 29 to aid in guiding depelletized wool into said drawer.

The apparatus operates as follows. More or less compacted or unflulfed wool to be depelletized is placed in hopper 18 and is fed from there by any suitable means, not illustrated, into'the air stream in conduit 17 proceeding from blower 16. The wool becomes considerably fluffed or opened up in the conduit 17 through which it is carried by the air stream into stack 11 and, due to the round cross-section of the stack and the tangential direction of entry of the wool, into said stack and to the fact that the latter is closed at the bottom but open at the top, the wool is urged upwardly in the stack in a helical or vortical path as indicated by the vortical lines. This upward movement of the wool is aided by reason of the fact that pipe 24 is simultaneously delivering a straight axial air stream up the center of the stack, furnished by blower 25, as indicated by the long straight arrows. Although the two air streams inevitably become mixed, it may be theorized that the axial stream, or that part of of separated door 26 and 27 at its base giving access it which does not mix with the vortical stream, has a greater upward velocity than the vortical stream, and the Wool particles, striking the central, straight stream will be boosted upwardly and outwardly in the tube 12, as indicated by the short curved arrows. In any event, the use of the two supplementing or interacting air streams causes the ibrous material to rise in the stack 11 with little or no disintegration.

The generally turbulent condition of the air bearing the wool upwardly in the stack trees the pellets from the more voluminous iibrous material. The respective velocities of the two air streams are so controlled that the air in stack 11 carries the tibrous Wool completely up the vertical portion .l2 of stack 11 and around the latters U-shaped top portion and into air exhaust chamber 15, while the less voluminous pellets respond to gravity and travel downwardly against the air streams in stack 11, through screen 2l, past mouth 23 and into the pellet tray or drawer 23. Due to the vortical motion given to the wool in stack 11, the pellets are subject to centrifugal force which minimizes the possibility of pellets dropping into pipe 2.4i, but any pellets which do enter that pipe may be removed occasionally at cleanout door 26.

The depelletized fibrous wool is carried downwardly in chamber l5 by the air stream and by gravity, the air escaping through the mesh. 53, 34; and the depelletized wool settles into the iibrous wool drawer 29 guided thereinto by ledge 37.

lt should be understood that reference in this specication and in the accompanying claims to the stack 11 as being vertical or substantially so, comprehends any stack disposition wherein the iibrous material moves upwardly and the pellets move downwardly substantially as described.

lt will thus be seen that this invention provides a device in which the several stated objects are achieved, and which is well adapted to meet the conditions of practical use. As various possible embodiments might be made of the above invention, and as various changes might be made in the structures disclosed herein, it is to be understood that all matter herein set forth or shown in the accompanying drawing is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

What is claimed is:

l. Mineral wool depelletizing apparatus comprising, in combination, a substantially round, tubular, vertical stack, means feeding an air stream substantially axially up said stack, a conduit communicating with said stack substantially tangentially and adjacent the bottom thereof, said conduit being formed with an opening for introducing thereinto wool to be depelletized, means providing an air stream moving in said conduit past said opening and into said stack, to carry such Wool into the stack, means located at the bottom of said stack for collecting pellets settling by gravity out of the wool blown up said stack and means communicating with the top of said stack for collecting the fibrous, depelletized wool.

2. Mineral wool depelletizing apparatus comprising, in combination, a substantially round, tubular, vertical stack, an open-top pipe located substantially coaxially within said stack, adjacent the bottom thereof and in spaced relation to the wall thereof, means feeding an air stream through said pipe substantially axially up said stack, a conduit extending approximately laterally toward said stack and communicating with the same tangentially adjacent the bottom thereof, said conduit being formed with an opening for feeding wool to be depelletized, means providing an air stream moving past said i opening and into said stack, a wool collecting air exhaust chamber connected to said stack adjacent the top thereof and means at the bottom of-said stack for collecting pellets.

3. Apparatus according to claim 2, Vfurther including a screen in said stack below the point of communication of said conduit therewith for aiding in the separation of pellets from the fibrous material.

4. Mineral wool depelletizing apparatus comprising, in combination, a substantially round, tubular, inverted J- shaped stack, an open-top pipe located substantially coaxially inside said stack adjacent the bottom thereof, blower means feeding an air stream through said pipe up said stack, a conduit communicating with said stack tangentially and above said pipe, a hopper opening into l y said conduit and adapted to receive wool to be depelletized, blower means feeding an air stream through said conduit past said hopper and into said stack, an air ex haust chamber communicating with said stack, means at the bottom of said chamber for receiving the depelletized brous wool product, and means at the bottom Vof said staclt for receiving pellets released from the wool in the stacx.

5. In an apparatus according to claim 4, said pipe having an upwardly and outwardly haring mouth portion, said mouth portion being in spaced relation to the wall of said stack.

6. .ln a mineral wool depelletizing apparatus, a substantially round, tubular, vertically extending stack, a conduit entering said stack tangentially toward the bottom thereof, means for feeding wool to be depelletized into said conduit and for transporting said wool into said stack in an air stream, means for feeding a separate air stream substantially axially up said stack from below the l juncture of the conduit and the stack, air exhaust means connecting with the top of said stack, means for receiving pellets at the bottom of said stack and means for receiving depelletized fibrous wool from said air exhaust means.

7. Mineral wool depelletizing apparatus comprising a substantially round, tubular, inverted J-shaped stack, a hopper for receiving wool to be depelletized, a conduit leading laterally and at a slight upward incline from said hopper and tangentially into said stack, a blower feeding an air stream into said conduit past said hopper and into said stack, a second blower, a pipe leading from said blower and into said stacl: and extending substantially axially upwardly therein below said conduit, SaidA pipe having an upwardly and outwardly haring mouth portion in spaced relation to the wall of said Stacie-a substantially horizontal screen located above said mouth portion and below Said conduit, an air exhaust chamber communicating with said stack, and means for removing pellets from the bottom of the stack and brous wool from the chamber.

References Cited in the tile of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

1. MINERAL WOOL DEPELLETIZING APPARATUS COMPRISING, IN COMBINATION, A SUBSTANITIALLY ROUND, TUBULAR, VERTICAL STACK, MEANS FEEDING AN AIR STREAM SUBSTANTIALLY AXIALLY UP SAID STACK, A CONDUIT COMMUNICATING WITH SAID STACK SUBSTANITALLY TANGENTIALLY AND ADJACENT THE BOTTOM THEREOF, SAID CONDUIT BEING FORMED WITH AN OPENING FRO INTRODUCING THEREINTO WOOL TO BE DEPELLETIZED, MEANS PROVIDING AN AIR STREAM MOVING IN SAID CONDUIT PAST SAID OPENING AND INTO SAID STACK, TO CARRY SUCH WOOL INTO THE STACK, MEANS LOCATED AT THE BOTTOM OF SAID STACK FOR COLLECTING PELLETS SETTLING BY GRAVITY OUT OF THE WOOL BLOWN UP SAID STACK AND MEANS COMMUNICATING WITH THE TOP OF SAID STACK FOR COLLECTING THE FIBROUS, DEPELLETIZED WOOL. 